09-09-2003, 19:03 | #1 |
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Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: the cookie jar.
Posts: 1,568
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Map Making Checklist
This checklist will be a work in progress. Please add comments or suggestions below and the map-mods will amend the list as appropriate.
Map-making checklist:
How to use the checklist: The purpose of this list is as an aid to making maps. This is not meant to be a definitive list of do's and dont's, but rather a reminder of the most critical issues in balancing a map. Balance does not mean all things being equal, it means overall maps should strive to be fair. Therefore it's fine if players do not have equal access to strats and luxes, or AI civs, or terrain etc. as long as you the mapmaker have recognised the specific imbalance and redressed the balance somewhere else. An example might be one player having iron but no horses, and the other player vice-versa. Or one player having better start terrain and bonuses and the other having more luxes, in each case the mapmaker has to weigh up the pros and cons and try and give each player a fair start overall. Also... maps will always inherently be unbalanced! I feel I have to say this so that players do not expect maps to be perfectly balanced. Hopefully the skills of the players and the RNG will be the deciding factor in games and not the slight imbalances that every map contains. Whether maps are hugely unbalanced or not - or even if the map is dam near perfect, it is always useful for mapmakers to get feedback on our maps. This way we can continue to learn what works and what dosen't and improve our mapmaking skills. I'm sure there's plenty more to add to the list, so chime in with opinions on what other points and/or descriptions would be useful. I'm also not sure exactly how much description or discussion to give to each point. Short summarys are likely preferable to long discussions, maybe we should have a brief description next to each point with a link to a more in-depth discussion elsewhere? |